


Different

by detri



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
Genre: Coming Out, First Kiss, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, judai doesn't realize he has repressed memories, mid-season 3 before the dimension hopping, the inherent gayness of seeing spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:47:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29814159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detri/pseuds/detri
Summary: Judai and Johan talk on the school roof. Judai realizes something, and makes a confession.
Relationships: Johan Andersen | Jesse Anderson/Yuuki Juudai | Jaden Yuki
Comments: 7
Kudos: 23





	Different

**Author's Note:**

> THEY'RE BASICALLY CANON SO I DON'T REALLY HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY THAT HASN'T BEEN SAID
> 
> but I love them so I wanted to write a confession/first kiss/Judai finally realizes he's gay fic no matter how many times it's been done before

After dinner in the Red dorm, lately, Judai would leave his friends behind. He would chat with them just long enough so that he wasn’t avoiding them, and then steal away from them to meet Johan on the school roof. It wasn’t that he had gotten tired of his friends, or that he didn’t like them anymore. But he could hang out with Johan in a way that he couldn’t hang out with everyone else. With Johan, even though there was so much the two of them could talk about, and that Judai wanted to talk about, it was just as comfortable and just as okay to sit together, knowing they were close to each other, and not talk at all. And not talking felt surprisingly natural. Johan had been the first person who had made Judai think about that, that you could be friendly and warm and get along with people but not always have to talk. Compared to that, Sho and Kenzan and even Manjoume felt awkward and immature, like they were trying to put up a front.

_He’s so h_ _onest_ _._ _I guess that’s the right word._ _I feel like h_ _e knows himself more than anyone else I’ve ever met._ Judai stole a look at him, almost silhouetted against the sunset. He was looking through Judai’s deck; he wasn’t critiquing it or talking about it at all, but Judai could tell by his deliberate expression that he was looking at it carefully. Judai wondered if he was faintly listening to the spirits of the cards, like Judai sometimes did when he couldn’t sleep. Even if they weren’t actively manifesting or talking to him, they were always there. Maybe that was why Judai had taken to Johan right away. He was like the spirits they could both talk to—kind, reliable, always nearby when Judai needed him, uplifting just to be around.

Judai drew his knees up to his chest to try to tamp down the weird fluttering in his chest. _I love being with him so much it makes me feel sick._ _I wonder if that’s how you’re supposed to feel_ _when you find a friend that really gets you_ _._

“ How long have you and the Elemental Heroes been friends? You’re so close,” Johan finally said, still gazing at Judai’s  cards spread out over the warm paving stones of the roof.

“Middle…?  Or... maybe  elementary school, I guess? They weren’t the first deck I played with, but I guess I didn’t really have a particular theme before them. I was just friends with every  card I could hear , and played with whatever I got from the packs my parents bought me.”

“How did you meet them?”

“I...” Judai wondered why it was so fuzzy. He had only realized recently (while listening to Sho’s long midnight invective about all the bullies who had wronged him in the first grade) that other kids had more memories than he did. He couldn’t remember much of anything specific before sometime in middle school. Only faint, isolated memories, where dreams and reality were hard to tell apart,  gave him any proof of his life before then . “I saw Flame Wingman on a duel on TV. I remember the duelist using Polymerization, and Featherman and Burst Lady swirling together like that, and then Flame Wingman was there, and  something about it was  just so cool.” As he remembered it, he couldn’t help but smile. He couldn’t remember anything before that that had made him so excited, that had made his heart beat like that. “It was the coolest duel ever, and I was jumping up and down in my room like, ‘that monster’s so awesome! That’s my favorite card!’ And I wanted o ne so bad , I bugged my parents for a huge advance on my allowance so I could keep buying the right packs and bribing my classmates who were into Duel Monsters until I could put together something that even kinda looked like an Elemental Hero deck.  I guess it wasn’t too popular  of a deck , so I never met anyone else who played it until Edo last year...” He laughed. “And on one hand I’m like ‘everyone should meet them, they’re  so cool!’ But on the other hand, this way it really feels like they’re my signature cards, right?  Man, I’m probably talking too much... ”

“ You’re not talking too much! I’ve never met anyone who connected to the spirits the same as me, I want to hear all about it!”

“ I don’t know if I’m the same as you, I didn’t start seeing spirits until Winged Kuriboh,  a nd that was right when I got into Duel Academy. But you’ve s een them all your life, right?”

Johan nodded. “ Even before I saw Duel Spirits for the first time,  I’d always known I was a little different from the other kids. My parents told me that even when I was a  baby , I had some kind of extra sense  and reacted to things neither of them could see.”

“Man, that must have freaked them out.” Judai’s own parents were that way. They had always held his ‘ vivid  imagination’ at arm’s length, and the room had always grown cold when he’d talk about anything he saw or thought on his own. They only wanted to hear about things they could prove and understand;  even his feelings, the emotions he felt about day to day life and the heart-pounding excitement of dueling, were carefully stepped around during dinner table conversation, and ignored whenever he brought them up.  But that only made him want to shout his feelings louder whenever they couldn’t hear.

“It didn’t. They were excited. They always told me ‘you’re going to do something great someday’.” Johan’s eyes were distant, but joyful. “I’m really grateful to them. I think they understood that they brought me into the world, but that my real family was still out there waiting to be found, and I had to go find them. Someday I want to go back home and show them the kind of person I’ve become. Once I’ve become that person, of course!” He laughed, and stretched his long limbs, laying flat on the warm roof. “ They’ve given me so much love and guidance and helped me meet people like Mr. Pegasus. Even if I am meant to do something great, I wouldn’t be able to do it without them.”

Judai laid down as well. The sky above was dotted with pink, wispy clouds. “Man...and my parents just told me I had too many imaginary friends.”

“They weren’t imaginary, though.” Johan provided the gentle reminder. “ Y our parents just c ouldn’t see them .”

“Yeah, I know.” Judai acc epted it.

They lay an arm’s length apart, absorbing the heat that radiated from the roof and warmed their backs, as the sun threatened to leave them in darkness.

“Hey, Johan. Do you think everyone has a family like that, that isn’t their real parents?” It would be comforting to think that just like Johan had the Crystal Beasts and Judai had his Heroes and Neo-Spacians, every single person had a fated happiness waiting for them.

“... Maybe.  Or maybe it’s just people like us. But  I definitely think some people are fated to be together.”

A wave of fluttery dizziness washed over Judai, and he was glad he was laying down. “Man...that’s so...”

“Is it too cheesy?”

“Hell no, I love cheesy stuff like that! Sometimes there’s no other way to say it, y’know?”

“Too romantic, then?”

“Romantic. Yeah, I guess that’s it.” Not that Judai knew anything about romance. He had never felt anything even bordering on the infatuation Sho had for any girl who’d give him the time of day,  or  wished for the whirlwind romance Fubuki was always waxing poetic about. Even Kenzan, whose eternal passions were mostly only reserved for large extinct land reptiles, had had a crush or two on a girl in the past year. Judai was still waiting for one to sneak up on him so he could see what the big deal was.

Johan had done so much and seen so much that he was probably years ahead on that front.  Though there was one thing about Johan that he had heard, and that suddenly came to mind now.

“... Aren’t you, um,” Judai wasn’t sure if he was supposed to say it, “gay, Johan?”

He didn’t remember if Johan had said it himself, or if Jim had offhandedly mentioned it, but it had stuck in Judai’s mind, because he had never met anyone gay before. It was almost more remarkable than the fact that he could see spirits, because Judai at least could relate to seeing spirits.

“Yeah.” For the first time, Judai thought he heard Johan sound guarded. “Do you...have a problem with that?”

“No way! I think it’s cool! I’ve just never met anyone who’s gay before.”

Johan rolled over to look at him. “What about Fubuki?”

Judai scoffed. “Fubuki’s not gay.”

Johan didn’t look like he believed him, but didn’t press it. “You probably have, but just didn’t know it. It’s not like people would tell you.”

Judai seriously considered it, for the first time in his life. “...I guess you’re right.”  He rolled over to face Johan. “But I seriously don’t have a problem with it. Most people just make fun of people for stuff like that, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it.  I think people should do what makes them happiest, because that’s what makes life fun.”

Johan chuckled. “You’re awesome, Judai.”

“Nah, no way. I don’t get why everyone doesn’t think like this!”

“ Most people are afraid of what they don’t understand,” Johan said. “But that’s why I want to be the bridge that connects humans and spirits together. I want to teach people about spirits, so that everyone can understand them and learn about the amazing creatures that visit our world!”

_He’s just so cool._ Judai couldn’t help but grin; all his feelings had nowhere to go but his face. If they stayed in his heart, his chest would explode.

Then he thought of something that dampened his spirits a little. “Oh, but, won’t being gay make that hard?”

Johan looked quizzical.

“Because y’know...isn’t it illegal?”

He was surprised when Johan started laughing.  _Come on, I had a good point, take it seriously!_

Johan scrubbed his eyes as if he were wiping away tears of laughter. “Being gay’s not illegal, Judai.”

“Oh!” He tried to trace back where he had gotten that idea. “I guess I just assumed because of how people talk about it. Sorry.”

“If you have any other weird ideas, you’d better let me set them straight  before you say anything worse.” Johan playfully poked him in the shoulder.

“Aw, come on.” Judai rolled over onto his back again, staring up at the pink and purple clouds. “Umm...Man, I just can’t think of any good gay questions. Do you have any normal-person questions I can answer?”

“The opposite of gay’s not normal, it’s ‘straight’.”

“Oh.” Judai scratched his head. “Well, um, what is being gay like?”

“What the heck does that mean?”

“I mean...man, what do I mean? Well, how did you know?”

Johan hummed a low thoughtful tone, and rolled over again to join Judai in looking at the clouds. “I don’t think there was a moment where I realized it, i t was just that eventually I learned there was a word for how I felt. ”

“ How did that happen?”

“ I didn’t understand why all my friends were getting so interested in girls. I just didn’t think of girls that way. I wanted to be friends with them, but I didn’t want to date them, or kiss them, or anything. I just cared more about my guy friends. I wanted to spend lots of time with them, and keep being close to them and having sleepovers with them. A lot of my friends thought sleeping in the same bed, or hugging, or stuff like that was ‘gay’ and didn’t want to do it. So I guess that’s how I realized I was gay.”  He folded his hands behind his head. “In my country, people talk about d ifferent  sexualities a little more, so I didn’t necessarily think it was bad. I knew  gay  people existed  and lived alongside everyone else . And because I can see spirits, I was already used to the idea of being different from other people.”

“So...wanting to spend time with your guy friends, and liking skinship, and stuff like that, that makes you gay?”

“No. You can be straight and still like that stuff.”

“So what’s the difference?”

“There’s a feeling you get from it. Like a warm, tingling feeling, and your heart beats really fast.”

Judai clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides, not sure what else to do with them. He didn’t have to put them over his chest to be able to feel his heart beating.

“Then what?” Judai asked.

“Then what?” Johan repeated, not sure what he meant.

“Then how do you feel?”

“You mean...when I like a guy?”

“Yeah.”

“I...” Johan paused for a moment, seeming to want to gather up all the right words. “I want to be close to him all the time. Physically close, but also, I just want to see him a lot. Because being with him makes me happy. I feel all mixed up inside, like I’m nervous and excited at the same time. Talking to him feels easy, because I like being around him. But because I don’t know how he feels about me, I have to be careful not to say the wrong thing, because I don’t want to ruin a friendship by coming on too strong.”

“What if he’s gay too?”

“Even if he’s gay, that doesn’t automatically means he likes me too. Not all gay people just fall in love with each other, y’know.”

“Oh, well—what if you did like each other?”

“ Then I guess I’d k iss him .”

“You guess?”

“I don’t know for sure, because I haven’t kissed anyone yet.”

“Me neither.”

They glanced at each other, and Johan rolled onto his side to face Judai again, and Judai didn’t let himself think before he did the next thing. He closed the short distance between the two of them and kissed him.

It was over in an instant. The unreality of feeling his lips on Johan’s was too much, and he had to pull away before he short-circuited.

Johan looked just as blown away as Judai felt. He touched his lips with his fingers as if to search for proof that Judai’s lips had been there.

“Everything you just said, that’s how I feel about you. I don’t know if I’m gay, I just know that I like you a lot and I’ve never liked a friend as much as you.” Judai said in a rush.

He only saw Johan’s expression, melting with joy, for a second before Johan tackled him and they rolled in a hug on the concrete roof.

“Judai...” Johan mumbled into his chest. “Judai!”

For a second, Judai worried that Johan was crying, before he lifted his face and saw that he was laughing with happiness and relief.

“Are you serious? Do you mean it? You really like me?”

Judai couldn’t help but smile back at him, matching his expression. “Yeah, I really _really_ like you! Is that okay?”

“It’s so okay! I’m so glad, I was so nervous that you were just being friendly and that you didn’t really like me back, not in the same way that I liked you!” Johan was the most exuberant Judai had ever seen him, more than even when he talked about the Crystal Beasts or Rainbow Dragon. If his heart was overflowing as much as Judai’s was right now, a part of Judai almost worried something literally magical might happen.

Instead, their hands found each other, interlocking their fingers. Johan raised himself up, and looked down into Judai’s eyes.

“Um...do you mind if I kiss you?”

Judai felt a stab of nervous excitement for some reason, and felt as if Johan’s weight on top of him had gotten much hotter and heavier than before. “Go ahead.”

He had said it so quietly he was almost afraid Johan hadn’t heard him, but then Johan lowered himself down and gently brushed Judai’s bangs aside, kissing him on the forehead before softly kissing him on the lips.

Judai felt like his heart was going to hammer out of his chest, and he clutched Johan’s hand tighter just so that that energy would have a place to go. Johan took it as a sign, and kissed Judai again, for a little longer this time, and it felt a little wetter. Judai realized his mouth had fallen open a bit.

“Crap, sorry...” Judai sat up and wiped his mouth as Johan pulled away. “Man, I’m shaking like crazy...it’s not like I’m scared or anything, though, I’m just so excited!”

“Me too.” Johan gave another nervous laugh. “Feel my hand.”

He put the hand that wasn’t still interlocked with Judai’s up against Judai’s cheek. It was shaking, just like he had said. Judai leaned into it. His touch was warm.

Johan rested his forehead against Judai’s. His voice was low and breathy in Judai’s ear and it made him shiver. “I knew it from the moment I first saw you. I knew we were meant to meet. I wonder if we’re fated to be together.”

“Really?”

At the core of Judai’s heart, there was an emptiness. It wasn’t something he liked to acknowledge, or think about. But he knew that something was missing from inside of him, like a scoop had been taken out.

Maybe Johan was the missing piece. Maybe they _were_ fated to be together.

Judai gave Johan a tight hug, as if he was trying to bind the two of them together. Johan was sitting on his legs, and they were starting to fall asleep, but he didn’t mind. He wanted some part of him to be touching some part of Johan forever from now on. All the close impassioned friendships he had had since he’d first come to Duel Academy and started making friends for the first time—Sho, Misawa, Manjoume, Edo, even the Kaiser, just a little—were falling into place; he understood them now for what they had meant and what his nameless passionate feelings had been. But they a ll paled beside this. He was in love with Johan in a way he had never loved anyone else, ever. And now that he knew it, he  didn’t want to leave him, tonight or ever  again .

“ Johan?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I kiss you again?”

“Yeah.”

Judai kissed him. It was as exciting as the first time, and the second time. H e wondered if he could ever get tired of it.

They laid side by side again, gazing at each other, close enough to feel each other’s breath.

“Do you have to go back to your dorm anytime soon?”  Judai asked.

“Nope.  No way.”

“Then...let’s stay here all night.”

“Yeah.”

Johan was probably thinking the same thing that Judai was: that the Academy Island they could see from the  school roof had turned into a sparkling diorama, and moving just a little might shake the magic away. That coming down would be stepping back into the world of just a few hours ago, and neither of them wanted to return to a world where their feelings were unspoken and they were only friends.

But what he said was, “ We can stargaze! Which one do you think Neos is from?”

And Judai knew he felt the same.


End file.
